Immigration Is a Job for the Feds, Not America’s Employers

The New York Times splashed a story on Thursday obviously designed as yet another attack on President Donald Trump. The Times claims that Trump’s golf course in Bedminster, New Jersey, employs illegal aliens. The paper notes, “There is no evidence that Mr. Trump or Trump Organization executives knew of [the employees’] immigration status. But at least two supervisors at the club were aware of it, the women said, and took steps to help workers evade detection and keep their jobs.”

On Friday, a spokesman for the Trump Organization refuted the story, stating, “We have tens of thousands of employees across our properties and have very strict hiring practices. If any employee submitted false documentation in an attempt to circumvent the law, they will be terminated immediately.”

Clearly, the Times is attempting to paint Trump as a massive hypocrite for allegedly employing illegals when one of his biggest policy agendas is stemming the tide of illegal immigration. Questions regarding the extent of his actual knowledge of the immigration status of thousands of workers employed by his business empire are sure to be brought up, but this affords an opportunity to explore an important point regarding the responsibility of the government versus employers.

Whose job is it to deal with illegal immigration? Answer: the federal government. The Washington Times reports that “just five of the 565 companies in President Trump’s business empire are signed up to use E-Verify” before questionably asserting it’s “the government’s best tool to weed illegal immigrants out of the workforce.” E-Verify may be the most useful tool for U.S. businesses to check on the immigration status of prospective employees — and we’d be glad if more used it — but the government’s best tool for weeding illegal aliens out of the workforce is deportation. Keeping illegal aliens out of the country is not the job of American businesses.

Blame for illegal aliens living and working in the country should not be leveled primarily at businesses but at politicians, particularly Democrats, who have long impeded the ability of U.S. border officials to more effectively do their jobs.

This week provides yet another example, as for the second time Trump offered a deal to Democrats on legal status for “Dreamers” in exchange for funding the border wall, only to once again be rejected by Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY).

Democrats and their Leftmedia cohorts don’t want to stop illegal border crossings, so why complain about American businesses employing illegal aliens? Where is the complaining from Democrats and the Left over the massive burden illegal immigration foists onto America’s welfare programs? It’s absent because Democrats believe illegals should be entitled to benefits and then vote for their benefactors. Trump may operate his business on the existing playing field, but he’s advocating and implementing policies that will correct some wrongs.